Everything you need for your growth and awakening, you get. It's built right into your life, already. You don't need to go to Tibet to learn from the great Masters… the Masters are those who are closest to you. The ones who are pushing all the right buttons, and saying all the "wrong" things, like a last-ditch attempt to get you to wake up to your crazy-ass thought patterns.

The Masters aren't just the ones standing on stoney mountain tops with their potato sack robes blowing in the wind, they're not just the ones who are radiating peace out of their pores so thick, that you can't help but collapse into catatonic bliss when you're near them. Oh no, my friends, the Masters are also the ones who push you. In fact, especially the ones who push you. The Masters in your life are the ones who push you, and pull you, and stretch you so thin you think you'll positively rip into shreds.

And you do.

Because here's the big secret people… it's the masters JOB to kill you.

To kill who you THINK you are, and let who you REALLY ARE rise from the ashes of all of that bullshit you've always believed about yourself… like how you were going to be proper, and RIGHT, and perfect, and complete, and SANE.

Sanity is highly overrated my friends. And furthermore… what we have BELIEVED to be sanity, is actually just insanity in disguise. And what we have believed to be insanity, well… it's a beginning.

A beginning for what is TRUE sanity: an unabashedly wide-open surrender to the seeming chaos that is this perfectly poetic Life. That, my friends, is sanity.

So, the Masters are not just the ones levitating in the heights of the Himalayas, or the ones subsisting on nothing but dew and primal energies in the great temples of the East — the Masters are the ones who dust a whole block of cheese in 2 days, and leave the empty wrapper in the fridge, for no other reason than to remind you that you didn't get any. The Masters are the ones leaving cracker crumbs on the floor, and pissing on the toilet seat. The Masters are the ones who refuse to listen, and understand, and COMPLY with your seemingly simple and very reasonable requests.

The Masters aren't just the ones who sit un-phased before crowds of thousands of highly-conflicted seekers — the Masters are the ones farting in the car and blaming it on someone else. They're the ones leaving their wet towels in a rotten heap on the bathroom floor, and shooting you the hairy-eyeball over the top of their laptop screen. The Masters are not just the ones who listen quietly and speak lovingly to you, until you finally understand — they're the ones who refuse to acknowledge your emails, who cut you off in traffic, and who try to sneak 20 items through the 10-item checkout line.

These are your Masters… your "Gurus". These are your TEACHERS.

Teachers of true peace and freedom. Because if you can't be at peace in their presence, you'll never find it. If you can't be peace and kindness and freedom in the face of all this, it will never, ever, ever, EVER be yours.

Your Masters are lined up all around you, ready to give it their all, to getyou to finally WAKE-UP to the fact that you're never, ever, EVER going to be able to control, the uncontrollable.

And as long as you continue to try, it's going to hurt.

It's going to hurt, hurt, hurt. They're trying to get you to see that. They're your personal shepherds, guiding you to the truth of LETTING GO. They come in all variations of infuriating packages, but all they really want is for you to lighten-the-frick-up, and merge with the flow — with the WAY OF IT, stop pushing so hard against what IS, relax, swim in it, move with it… laugh at it!! It's really all beautiful, and fleeting! With every infuriating action, they are giving you your freedom. So why not just HAVE it already?

My Masters are my son, my husband, my dog, my cats, and my extended family… in addition to my "online world", and total strangers everywhere. These are the "Guru's" life has sent me.

And it is with this in mind that I compiled a list of 12 THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT I'D DO FOR MY GURU, BUT DID:

(you'll have to guess which guru is which - but it's way funnier if you just imagine a buddhist monk or something) ;)

1. I made my guru an Ernie & Burt birthday cake.2. I put my guru in his pajamas, and yes, I wiped my guru's butt.3. I let my guru swim naked in front of total strangers.4. I fed my guru goldfish crackers and let him watch copious amounts of Spongebob Squarepants.5. I let my guru lick my face, when I know full-well that he licks his butt when I'm not looking.6. I keep my guru on a leash in public and pick up his poops with a plastic bag.7. I picked up my guru from the principals office after he had been caught using sidewalk chalk to write "Shit" on the pavement as part of an elaborate dare by one of his friends.8. I made my guru a mixed-tape.9. I let my guru touch my boobs.10. I allowed one of my guru's take my other guru to a Heavy Metal concert and a Monster Truck Rally.11. I make my guru wear a pee-pee strap in other people's houses so he doesn't tinkle on the corners of their furniture.12. I sleep with my guru. (oh no she Dih-ENT!!)

So… what do you do for your gurus? Your own personal Zen Masters? Compile a list of your own, might be good for a giggle! :)

I love knowing that everyone is here as my teacher. I don't have to go anywhere… the greatest lessons come to me, wherever I am.

All Ihave to do is listen. SEE. Go IN.

That kind of understanding is irreplaceable. It turns out to be all for you.